Is the Set correct?

[+Oltux72]

You may ask what this has got to with Rhythm of War. We have seen what a whacky Bondsmith can do. The number of Bondsmiths, however, is quite limited. All but one is constrained by oaths. Among those at least two Bondsmiths are chained to Roshar. But there is one other group of people who have unlimited access to Connection: Duraluminium Compounders.

With the advent of medaillon technology into a scientifically advanced world, they will start studying these hings. Slowly at first, but then inevitably. Twinborn can  worldhop without a problem. Keeping that in mind, we have to ask a provocative question. Is the Set correct? Does this need to be stopped by all means necessary for the good of the rest of the Cosmere?

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

You may ask what this has got to with Rhythm of War. We have seen what a whacky Bondsmith can do. The number of Bondsmiths, however, is quite limited. All but one is constrained by oaths. Among those at least two Bondsmiths are chained to Roshar. But there is one other group of people who have unlimited access to Connection: Duraluminium Compounders.

With the advent of medaillon technology into a scientifically advanced world, they will start studying these hings. Slowly at first, but then inevitably. Twinborn can  worldhop without a problem. Keeping that in mind, we have to ask a provocative question. Is the Set correct? Does this need to be stopped by all means necessary for the good of the rest of the Cosmere?

I’ll do you one better: hemalurgy is basically the bloodier version of Bondsmith powers. And it can be used by anyone, anywhere, who knows how.

[Rorzikel]

Oh, Scadrial is definitely a nightmare for anyone who isn't scadrian. Their government is, at most, 32 victims away from a living god and a still active cosmere-aware entity has already shown the ability to manufacture a medallion that grants fullbornhood. Even obeying the three spike limit, careful planning can make extremely dangerous creations. A twinborn given three additional powers could be, for example, a gold compounder, a steel compounder, and A-copper to make a hyperlethal assassin virtually undetectable to both mundane and invested sense and capable of Wolverine-like healing. They could have 3 times A-Electrum, A-Duralumin, and F-Copper and act as both an anti-futuresight measure like Renarin does as well as mining the future constantly for tactical and strategic advantage. You could have steel compounding, A-Duralumin, A-Chromium, F-Gold and have a tool which can neutralize highly invested threats like Bondsmiths.

A Scadrial whose magic systems are understood and competently used in combination is a severe inherent risk to the peace and safety of the rest of the Cosmere. All it takes is one political movement with expansionist intent and the Cosmere runs redder than the Scar.

[Karger]

Knowledge cannot be contained nor can research be stopped.  If someone who understands stops others from gaining the power of connections who will watch them to make sure they don't abuse their exclusive information?

[Kingsdaughter613]

14 minutes ago, MyrmidonOfAchilles said:

Oh, Scadrial is definitely a nightmare for anyone who isn't scadrian. Their government is, at most, 32 victims away from a living god and a still active cosmere-aware entity has already shown the ability to manufacture a medallion that grants fullbornhood. Even obeying the three spike limit, careful planning can make extremely dangerous creations. A twinborn given three additional powers could be, for example, a gold compounder, a steel compounder, and A-copper to make a hyperlethal assassin virtually undetectable to both mundane and invested sense and capable of Wolverine-like healing. They could have 3 times A-Electrum, A-Duralumin, and F-Copper and act as both an anti-futuresight measure like Renarin does as well as mining the future constantly for tactical and strategic advantage. You could have steel compounding, A-Duralumin, A-Chromium, F-Gold and have a tool which can neutralize highly invested threats like Bondsmiths.

A Scadrial whose magic systems are understood and competently used in combination is a severe inherent risk to the peace and safety of the rest of the Cosmere. All it takes is one political movement with expansionist intent and the Cosmere runs redder than the Scar.

And the Cosmere-aware entity who can create Fullborn medallions is known to be rather ambitious, cannot keep himself from meddling, has always had a taste for power, delights in one-upping the most powerful people he can reach, and enjoys bloodshed far too much for anyone’s piece of mind. And probably knows WAY too much about Hemalurgy AND is seemingly Fullborn. Oh and the majority of the planet is nominally loyal to him.

Kelsier is bad news for anyone who isn’t Scadrial.

[Rorzikel]

4 minutes ago, Karger said:

Knowledge cannot be contained nor can research be stopped.  If someone who understands stops others from gaining the power of connections who will watch them to make sure they don't abuse their exclusive information?

I mean, but it can? Rashek kept Scadrial in technological stasis for a thousand years.

No one, presumably given that to have a stranglehold on information and realmatic development, this person or group is acting either as the current authoritarian government with unilateral powers or is effectively the government in all but name.

5 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

And the Cosmere-aware entity who can create Fullborn medallions is known to be rather ambitious, cannot keep himself from meddling, has always had a taste for power, delights in one-upping the most powerful people he can reach, and enjoys bloodshed far too much for anyone’s piece of mind. And probably knows WAY too much about Hemalurgy AND is seemingly Fullborn. Oh and the majority of the planet is nominally loyal to him.

Kelsier is bad news for anyone who isn’t Scadrial.

Indeed.

[Karger]

11 minutes ago, MyrmidonOfAchilles said:

I mean, but it can? Rashek kept Scadrial in technological stasis for a thousand years.

Yes and no.  He managed to keep everyone else locked down by abusing his own access to privileged information.  I should have qualified that statement by saying that it can't happen in any society where almost any research is conducted.  Stopping development is an all or nothing game.  So if we are arguing the the Set is right what we are really saying is that we want the cosmere to be a group of scadirals that are occasionally nuked by a group of people whose ideology we don't understand. 

[Leuthie]

On 2020-12-13 at 9:50 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I’ll do you one better: hemalurgy is basically the bloodier version of Bondsmith powers. And it can be used by anyone, anywhere, who knows how.

Hemalurgy is not one better. Hemalurgy requires loss with every transfer, a net negative. Allomancy and Surges are net positive. Feruchemy is net neutral. If you transfer Connection power from Ishar to some other person, the power will be diminished on the second person and lost completely on Ishar. Yes, a lot of power can be stolen from others using Hemalurgy, but that power is diminished and you have to get the source of that power into a position to drive a specific type of spike into a specific place then someone to agree to have that powered spike driven into a specific place in them. And the target has to survive the spiking.

I would think getting the same powers at full strength using Allomancy and Feruchemy and Surges would be better.

 

On 2020-12-13 at 0:27 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

And the Cosmere-aware entity who can create Fullborn medallions is known to be rather ambitious, cannot keep himself from meddling, has always had a taste for power, delights in one-upping the most powerful people he can reach, and enjoys bloodshed far too much for anyone’s piece of mind. And probably knows WAY too much about Hemalurgy AND is seemingly Fullborn. Oh and the majority of the planet is nominally loyal to him.

Kelsier is bad news for anyone who isn’t Scadrial.

And yet he's spending a ton of resources to meddle in other worlds to get knowledge he doesn't have. Then again, the current Ghostblood storylines occur prior to the Wax and Wayne storylines, so something he learns (during SA) on Roshar might be integral to what he's doing (during Mistborn Era 2) on Scadrial.

[Kingsdaughter613]

19 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

Hemalurgy is not one better. Hemalurgy requires loss with every transfer, a net negative. Allomancy and Surges are net positive. Feruchemy is net neutral. If you transfer Connection power from Ishar to some other person, the power will be diminished on the second person and lost completely on Ishar. Yes, a lot of power can be stolen from others using Hemalurgy, but that power is diminished and you have to get the source of that power into a position to drive a specific type of spike into a specific place then someone to agree to have that powered spike driven into a specific place in them. And the target has to survive the spiking.

I would think getting the same powers at full strength using Allomancy and Feruchemy and Surges would be better.

double posting is frowned upon.
 

I was responding to the comment about the metallic arts. 

16 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

And yet he's spending a ton of resources to meddle in other worlds to get knowledge he doesn't have. Then again, the current Ghostblood storylines occur prior to the Wax and Wayne storylines, so something he learns (during SA) on Roshar might be integral to what he's doing (during Mistborn Era 2) on Scadrial.

We don’t actually know what he wants on Roshar. But it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Cosmere.

[Leuthie]

20 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

double posting is frowned upon.
 

Sorry.  I always found responses to different posts being different posts, rather than long multi-quote streams of thought, to be easier to follow as a reader.

20 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I was responding to the comment about the metallic arts. 

I was responding to your response to the comment about the metallic arts. Hemalurgy is inherently limited by the hurdles you have to overcome to utilize it. For example: To steal Ishar's Connection powers, you have to know the material of the spike, how big the spike has to be, where to put the spike to steal the ability, where to put the spike to give the ability to another; then you need to capture Ishar and spike him in the exact required spot. They you need to find someone who can survive the same spike being driven into the spot required to transfer the ability to them. So the research requirements are huge, the implementation requirements are huge and the resulting power will be less than what Ishar can do due to loss inherent in the process.

20 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

We don’t actually know what he wants on Roshar. But it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Cosmere.

Nothing bodes well for the rest of the Cosmere since there are 11 people (16 Shards - 4 that are shattered/aren't being held and 2 that are held by one person) that hold huge concentrations of power and slowly lose their ties to what made them people to begin with. I think the threat of Kelsier (and we don't even know his intentions) pales in comparison to the threat posed by the Shards and their Vessels.

But that's just me.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Leuthie

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 minute ago, Leuthie said:

Sorry.  I always found responses to different posts being different posts, rather than long multi-quote streams of thought, to be easier to follow as a reader.

I was responding to your response to the comment about the metallic arts. Hemalurgy is inherently limited by the hurdles you have to overcome to utilize it.

Nothing bodes well for the rest of the Cosmere since there are 11 people (16 Shards - 4 that are shattered/aren't being held and 2 that are held by one person) that hold huge concentrations of power and slowly lose their ties to what made them people to begin with. I think the threat of Kelsier (and we don't even know his intentions) pales in comparison to the threat posed by the Shards and their Vessels.

But that's just me.

Compared to Shards, sure. Compared to ordinary humans, not so much. Depending on how the Cosmere conflicts develop, Kell could end up very dangerous indeed.

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

You may ask what this has got to with Rhythm of War. We have seen what a whacky Bondsmith can do. The number of Bondsmiths, however, is quite limited. All but one is constrained by oaths. Among those at least two Bondsmiths are chained to Roshar. But there is one other group of people who have unlimited access to Connection: Duraluminium Compounders.

Yes but Bondsmiths manipulate ALL connection, not just their own.

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

Yes but Bondsmiths manipulate ALL connection, not just their own.

That is a very strong assumption about what Connectors can do. We can be reasonably sure that they store "raw" Connection not a specific Connection. The translating medaillons wouldn't work so universally otherwise. And Henderwym apparently strengthened at least somebody's Connection to him.

3 hours ago, Karger said:

Yes and no.  He managed to keep everyone else locked down by abusing his own access to privileged information.  I should have qualified that statement by saying that it can't happen in any society where almost any research is conducted.  Stopping development is an all or nothing game.  So if we are arguing the the Set is right what we are really saying is that we want the cosmere to be a group of scadirals that are occasionally nuked by a group of people whose ideology we don't understand. 

Or that abybody who wants to do research has to belong to this group and needs to be checked for the "right" attitude periodically and closely supervised. You could argue that some people in the Cosmere believe so. Vasher for example.

We agree that no private citizen should own a hydrogen bomb, don't we? Looking at Ashyn can we truly say that is not the equivalent of what we are looking at?

[Frustration]

Just now, Oltux72 said:

That is a very strong assumption about what Connectors can do. We can be reasonably sure that they store "raw" Connection not a specific Connection. The translating medaillons wouldn't work so universally otherwise. And Henderwym apparently strengthened at least somebody's Connection to him.

Connectors store "blank" connection which basically acts as a translator, and they can manipulate connection to them, or to others from them. However Ishar messes with other peoples connection to other things. A connector can't store your connection to your family, or a friend, only to themselves, while a Bondsmith can rip out a piece of your soul.

[Karger]

19 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Or that abybody who wants to do research has to belong to this group and needs to be checked for the "right" attitude periodically and closely supervised. You could argue that some people in the Cosmere believe so. Vasher for example.

No such system is infallible.  Vasher delayed the development of other NB like weapons because he got in on it early but he did not stop them. 

20 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

We agree that no private citizen should own a hydrogen bomb, don't we? Looking at Ashyn can we truly say that is not the equivalent of what we are looking at?

I personally do but we don't agree that no private citizen should ever have the theoretical knowledge necessary to build such a weapon.  I am going to use the simpler example of an old fashioned nuke.  I agree that private citizens owning them is bad.  However if you check your history you might notice something odd.  The fact that most nations don't have them is not actually because they are particularly difficult to build but rather because most nations got together and decided by treaty not to build them.  Plenty of people still research physics that could lead to practical weaponry of this type.  We don't build them because we came to an open agreement not to.  A still better example might be biological warefare.  Of the vast network of scientists that are(hopefully) about to start distrusting vaccines against covid a large number could probably turn their work to making plagues.  However I would not advise stopping all immunologists from researching.

[Raven Wilder]

Hmm ... would a Feruchemist storing their Connection in a Duraluminmind be immune to Ishar's Bondsmith powers?

[+Oltux72]

8 hours ago, Karger said:

No such system is infallible.  Vasher delayed the development of other NB like weapons because he got in on it early but he did not stop them. 

I personally do but we don't agree that no private citizen should ever have the theoretical knowledge necessary to build such a weapon.

That is exactly the point. With some of the arcane arts the knowledge is the weapon.

8 hours ago, Karger said:

I am going to use the simpler example of an old fashioned nuke.  I agree that private citizens owning them is bad.  However if you check your history you might notice something odd.  The fact that most nations don't have them is not actually because they are particularly difficult to build but rather because most nations got together and decided by treaty not to build them.

I also notice that - this is difficult without becoming too political - most nations who decided otherwise, unless big or well connected - got into trouble.

8 hours ago, Karger said:

  Plenty of people still research physics that could lead to practical weaponry of this type.  We don't build them because we came to an open agreement not to.  A still better example might be biological warefare.  Of the vast network of scientists that are(hopefully) about to start distrusting vaccines against covid a large number could probably turn their work to making plagues.  However I would not advise stopping all immunologists from researching.

Well, in case of scientist what we got is a system that requires cooperation and equipment. Even if you theoretically know how to make nerve gas, doing so with improper equipment will kill you. To an extent we have a situation where supervision prevents that. There are technologies where this is not possible. Hence we will always have teenagers developing malware and hacking systems.

[Kingsdaughter613]

19 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That is exactly the point. With some of the arcane arts the knowledge is the weapon.

I also notice that - this is difficult without becoming too political - most nations who decided otherwise, unless big or well connected - got into trouble.

Well, in case of scientist what we got is a system that requires cooperation and equipment. Even if you theoretically know how to make nerve gas, doing so with improper equipment will kill you. To an extent we have a situation where supervision prevents that. There are technologies where this is not possible. Hence we will always have teenagers developing malware and hacking systems.

Chlorine gas is actually super easy to create. You can do it with cleaning supplies. If you know what your doing it’s not that hard to do (relatively) safely.

My grandfather is an Organic chemist. He could  make multiple chemical weapons safely from items laying about the house. Also multiple bombs. He doesn’t, but he could.

[trav]

12 hours ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

Yes but Bondsmiths manipulate ALL connection, not just their own.

this is pretty much it. Bondsmiths can alter, relocate and create while Feruchemist can only store and tap what they already have.
Brandon could make exceptions here. if its following the regular rules its still usefull, but less so than Bondsmiths abilities.

Edited December 14, 2020 by trav

[+Oltux72]

59 minutes ago, trav said:

this is pretty much it. Bondsmiths can alter, relocate and create while Feruchemist can only store and tap what they already have.
Brandon could make exceptions here. if its following the regular rules its still usefull, but less so than Bondsmiths abilities.

Unless they happen to be compunders.

[trav]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Unless they happen to be compunders.

this is still outside the norm. Compounding does not change that.
you store Connection. the Connection you already posses. Compounding this should give you back the Connection you already had 10 fold (paraphrasing).

its should not give you additional Connection that you did not originally have. Bondsmiths can form and alter that at will. not just for themselves, but for others and things aswell.
huge difference.

Compounding: could create a strong bond to ones own family. weakens again once the Compounding stops.
Bondsmith: could create a bond to a random family. possibly a persistent one.

I suppose Brandon will do w/e he wishes with the spiritual attributes in the end though. even if it makes little sense so far.

Edited December 14, 2020 by trav

[+Oltux72]

Just now, trav said:

this is still outside the norm. Compounding does not change that.
you store Connection. the Connection you already posses. Compounding this should give you back the Connection you already had 10 fold (paraphrasing).

Yes. Then you store that, repeat the process and you get 100 times the original amount and so on. The limit is your supply of metal.

Just now, trav said:

its should not give you additional Connection that you did not originally have. Bondsmiths can form and alter that at will. not just for themselves, but for others and things aswell.
huge difference.

Well, no. Medaillons can definitely make new Connections. No Southern Scadrian has a Connection to the Elendel Basin.

It is unclear whether a true Connector can make arbitrary Connections between third parties, but they are not limited to existing Connections.

 

[trav]

37 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

No Southern Scadrian has a Connection to the Elendel Basin.

lets pretend the process is clear.
Dalinar can Connect to people to understand them. he did so in Azir with the servant. no matter where they currently are. Connection to the land is not required.
Connection to the one hes currently talking to is. or someone else who speaks that language. on the other hand, for the map he and Shallan create hes using his Connection to the land.
(tapping Connections while being in the proximity of someone will make you understand them. it enhances the Connection to them.)
lets assume its completely arbitrary and allows a Compounder (or regular Feruchemist) to establish any sort of Connection. that would still just be for themselves.

Bondsmiths can change and add Connections to third parties. Ishar Connected Radiants to the ground. Ishar is able to rip Connections from someone else.
this is not comparable at all.

Edited December 14, 2020 by trav

[IndigoAjah]

Welp, thank This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules Harmony decided to get rid of natural born Mistborn 

[Kingsdaughter613]

41 minutes ago, IndigoAjah said:

Welp, thank This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules Harmony decided to get rid of natural born Mistborn 

No, that happened naturally.